Kandahar remains a shell of a city after decades of warfare

Published: Sunday, December 16, 2001

Associated Press

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP)  If you want to send a letter to somebody in Kandahar, it helps to identify a mosque, school or other nearby landmark. Street addresses are a rarity in this dusty, crumbling city.

It was hard to run a post office even in the best of times in Kandahar. But two months of tumult before the defeated Taliban abandoned their former stronghold without a fight on Dec. 7 further eroded city services, and some shut down altogether.

Sitting barefoot on a bench outside his cluttered office Saturday, chief postmaster Abdul Qadir said he had just four postmen with bicycles to deliver mail in a city of several hundred thousand people.

"If I had found an opportunity to leave this country 20 years ago, I would have," Qadir said. Above his office, shut for two weeks, a misspelled sign in English read: "Kandahar Genral Post Office."

Qadir used to have dozens of employees, but many left during the years of repressive Taliban control or fled along with tens of thousands of citizens after the United States launched its bombing campaign on Oct. 7. Many residents have yet to return.

Afghanistan's interim government takes office on Dec. 22 in the capital, Kabul, but central authority is likely to remain weak for months or even years in a nation devastated by two decades of war. Many eagerly await international aid to help rebuild.

"We are poor people and we expect help from every foreigner," said Kandahar's new mayor Abdul Hamid, a former commander in the war against the Soviet Union.

Hamid said his first priorities would be to establish a tax system and controls on prices of basic commodities, which are up to three times higher than normal. He also planned to clean up the piles of trash on the streets.

He said he was "60 to 70 percent" satisfied with the security situation in Kandahar, which filled with unruly tribal gunmen in the days after the Taliban pulled out.

However, Hamid acknowledged that some of his civilian staff were afraid to drive out of concern their vehicles would be seized by gunmen who are supposed to be enforcing order in the city.

The real master of the city is Gul Agha, a former governor of Kandahar and its province who got his old job back in a deal with Afghanistan's interim leader, Hamid Karzai. Agha has appointed a police chief, but gunshots are routinely heard.